


Alis Propriis Volat

by LLReid



Category: Labyrinths of Astoria (Visual Novel)
Genre: Ballet AU, F/F, Fluff, Pregnancy, dyslexic writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 15:36:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21079190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Introspective fic inspired by the latin phrase ‘Alis Propriis Volat’ that translates to ‘she flies with her own wings’.





	Alis Propriis Volat

“I still can’t believe you used to do this,” Medusa sighed happily, never stilling her hand as it worked it’s way through the long chocolaty strands of her wife’s hair despite the fact most of her attention was directed towards the laptop rested on her lap. A teenaged ballet prodigy floated across her screen wearing an emerald green dress with a tambourine in hand, the thirteen year old YouTube video with more than ten million views and three million likes was titled ‘Esmeralda Variation | Bolshoi Ballet Academy | Tatiana Feodorovna Medvedeva (Age 17)’ and it was one of the gorgon’s favourites.

Tatiana smiled at her, her attention leaving her own laptop where she was looking through nursery ideas they had pinned together on Pinterest. The second she realised that Medusa was watching her dance, a fierce rosy blush rose to her cheeks. A quick YouTube search of her name brought up more than seventy-five results, combinations of professionally filmed news segments from multiple countries all haling her a prodigy, routines performed at international competitions beginning at the age of seven, and strangers who’d been lucky enough to see her dance in the flesh and uploaded her work to the channels. Despite the fact that she’d trained in New York, London, and Moscow, and gained international acclaim with her talent she was so bashful that she squirmed whenever anyone mentioned her accomplishments.

Her short lived but immensely successful ballet career was a cautionary tale that could be applied to every situation that life could ever hope to throw at a person. One should always beware of getting exactly what they want, as it was possible to grow up in an instant, that eventually one could look down and see the line drawn in the sand dividing their life from what it used to be and what it eventually became without them truly having any sort of say it what was happening. That there was an enormous difference between an audience that's watching because they can't wait to see what comes next and an audience that's watching because they're trying to force a person into a mould where they’d never naturally fit, drawing the life from them little by little. No matter what it was bound to disappoint in one way or another. That fiction would always come in all shapes and sizes. Secrets, lies, stories, facades. We all tell them, even if we do not mean to. Sometimes, because people hope to entertain or be entertained. Sometimes, because they need to distract or be distracted. And sometimes, it is because they have have to in order to keep from breaking. The moral of her story was that no matter how gifted a person is, no matter how much other people want glory for them... some stories just don't have the ending that people believe the ought to.

“You’re watching Esmeralda again?”

“I love this one just as much as the Giselle Peasant Variation you did in that competition in Paris when you were eleven.” Medusa knew nothing about ballet, save for what she had learned through watching each and every video of her wife, but watching Tatiana dance made her incredibly happy. There was something calming about watching her twirl and leap across the stage, something that set her interpretations apart from every other video she’d ever seen. And despite how limited her knowledge of the sport was, a quick trip to the comments section was all it took to realise just how incredibly talented Tatiana had been — as well as just how much people missed her dancing.

What the commenters on the internet didn’t seem to realise was that a ballerina with Tatiana’s talent, dedication, and potential wouldn’t just walk away from the sort of prestige she’d earned for no real reason at all. People don’t just disappear. It was bizarre to her that people didn’t realise this, or stop to question why Tatiana had achieved what she had by such a young age. There was a difference between a child doing something that made them happy and something that made other people happy. The trick many strangers seemed to rely upon whilst watching the malnourished and exhausted girl in the videos dancing was convincing themselves those were one and the same. It was always easier to ignore the loose thread, even after it had begun to visibly unravel. People always believe what they want to, what they need to. The corollary was that they would always choose not to see what they would rather pretend doesn't exist beneath the surface.

But if Medusa had learned anything, it was that people don't know half of what they think they do. And they know those who seem to have it all the very least of all, as those overachieving types are usually the best at keeping their true thoughts and feelings hidden behind a carefully crafted mask.

Tatiana kissed her cheek and gave her hand a tight squeeze. Before her, no one had ever held Medusa’s hand in that way. Not just in passing, a loose link between two people to keep from getting split up in public spaces, but truly clasping her, with the pulses of their wrists beating together in harmony and their fingers mapping the knuckles and nails like a cartographer learning an entire undiscovered land by heart. Whenever she was touched that way, it felt like the first warm day of the year at the end of March — after an eternity of ice and snow, when one suddenly remembered how summer felt on the backs of bare calves and in the part of their hair. There was a certain sort of magic to the intimacy behind the gesture, an entire world built of sighs and skin that is softer than velvet, stronger than iron. There is only Medusa, and her Annie, so impossibly close that nothing could ever possibly come between them. Not any enemy, not any allies. In their own little safe haven, in their own hallowed place and time.

“The way the skirts moved in those routines is pretty similar, they’re not your standard tutus. Both of those dresses were designed especially for me—“

“Weren’t all of your costumes?”

“Well, yeah. By the time I was nine I had designers paying me to wear their costumes because they knew that no matter what competition I did, I’d win, and if it was a professional production people would be talking about how I danced for weeks after opening. Each one was handmade but these ones were always my favourites because of the way the skirts moved, because of how graceful they looked on stage.”

“You look like you’re flying.”

“I felt like it, too.” The twinkling white lights decorating their Christmas tree made her already glowing skin look ethereal, her smile was like looking at the sun. Tatiana rarely spoke of ballet but every time she did her eyes would sparkle in that special way that captivated Medusa to the point drawing her attention away from her was a chore. Even before she had attained godly powers she’d enraptured her so effortlessly, and somehow that only seemed to intensify the longer they were together. Now, even at seven months pregnant with their twins, she was still the most beautiful woman Medusa had ever laid eyes upon. 

In Medusa’s long life, she’d never had anything close to what she had with Tatiana. From day one Tatiana had been someone who never had to pretend, and who she had never had to pretend around. Someone who was smart, but knew how to laugh at herself. Someone who would listen to a symphony and start to cry, because she understood music can be too big for words sometimes. She was someone who knew her better than she knew herself. Someone she had wanted to talk to first thing in the morning and last thing at night, starting literally only a few hour after meeting her. Tatiana was someone she felt like she’d known her whole life, even though she hadn’t.

In their time together Medusa had learned that life could and would continually take on any number of shapes and sizes while one was kept busy fighting their own inner demons. But none of that mattered if they were changing at the same rate as the person beside them. So long as that remained true and cherished then nothing else really mattered. 

They became each other's constant.

They became each other’s home.

She was all the things that Medusa wasn't. And she was all the things Tatiana wasn't. Tatiana could dance circles around anyone; Medusa couldn't even do a split without almost breaking a leg. She was never into reading outdated textbooks just for the laughs they brought; Medusa always had been. When she wanted to escape her life, she read books. When Tatiana wanted to escape her life, she baked up a storm. Tatiana’s hand, it fit hers. It fit hers like the very last piece of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle.

Even after so many years together, Medusa was struck stupid by the fact she always smelled like rain and how her stomach did backflips every time she saw her shake her hair loose from the perfect ballerina style bun she wore every day to work. This woman — who’d been alive for only thirty years — finished her sentences and was so intellectually stimulating that their conversations often left the gorgon reeling whilst they were both at work. She didn’t know how Tatiana had done it, how she had tamed her wild heart and made her stronger than she’d ever been, or how she’d become her home. Yet it didn’t matter where they were, so long as her Annie was with her then Medusa was home.

“Do you want the girls to dance like you did?” She caressed her wife’s rounded out belly over the fabric of the flannel shirt that had belonged to her from sometime in the early 70s until Tatiana had come into her life. She’d long since commandeered the shirt as her own despite the fact it was so big on her tiny frame that she practically swam in it...but she wore it better than Medusa ever had. Relaxed on the couch beside her, her breathing slow and even, she may as well have been a painting. Some primal part of the gorgon snarled in satisfaction at the sight of her wearing her clothes, at knowing she was covered in her scent.

“Growing up in the city is sort of a cultural thing for kids to do ballet before they can even walk properly...I think it would be cute for them to take classes but we can’t ever force them,” Tatiana said. “The second my parents realised I was gifted my entire life revolved around the studio and I missed out on so much because I was always at ballet — and the resentment I had for them both was so intense that it had me burnt out and on a daily cocktail of anxiety medications strong enough to be considered horse tranquillisers before I’d even made it en pointe.”

“Do you think them pushing you was what made you want to walk away from it?”

Tatiana remained silent for a few moments, staring at herself dancing across Medusa’s laptop screen with a wistful look on her face. The seventeen year old girl in the video was on the cusp of becoming someone in the industry she’d been chained to her entire life. Even at her young age she had known there are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there's someone who must give. She was a girl who had not known what she wanted and she had not known who she was, even as the applause rang out at the end of her routine. But she had known enough to know she deserved the chance to find out, to forge her own path. 

The space between yes and no, between every answer, there was a lifetime. It was the difference between the path she had walked and the one she had chosen to leave behind; it was the gap between who she thought she could be and who she really was; it was the legroom for the lies she’d tell herself in the future. It was a mathematical formula for happiness: Reality divided by the World’s Expectations. There were two ways to be happy: improve reality or lower expectations. Every grown woman knew that if they divided reality by expectation, they’d wind up with a happiness quotient. But when they inverted the equation — expectation divided by reality — they wouldn’t come up with the opposite of happiness. What they got, was hope. Tatiana’s wide eyed silence conveyed all of that, rather poetically for one who’d only experienced three decades of life.

“Who I was, and what I was capable of doing always managed to surprise me as much as it surprised everyone else...but you have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment on stage when you feel alive. You make yourself strong because it's expected of you. You become confident because someone beside you at the barre is unsure. You turn into the person others need you to be, yet when you walk into a class full of other dancers you always feel so alone that you can barely hold yourself upright let alone do what’s asked of you. It’s not a life. You spend your days concentrating on what everyone else thinks of you and you forget who you really are — and that’s if you’ve even managed to build any sort of identity away from the studio. Most of the time the face you’re forced to show the world is a mask...with nothing beneath it.” She nuzzled against her and let out a shaky sigh. “I know what it is to be pushed in a direction you don't want to go, or one you're not ready for. People say they know what's best for you. Maybe sometimes it's true. But it doesn't matter if they keep pushing until they take your choices away. I wasn’t ever given the opportunity to learn how to love it on my own terms because I was pushed so hard...and the one life lesson I walked away from eighteen years worth of dancing with is that you don’t need water to feel like you’re drowning.”

“Your life revolved around pleasing others.”

“That’s really all professional ballet is. Your job as a dancer is to make it look easy and graceful no matter how much pain you’re in or how exhausted you are. I always got in trouble in my classes because I always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is the only thing that matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?” She sighed. “What’s the difference between spending your life trying to be invisible, or pretending to be the person you know that everyone else’s wants you to be? Either way, you’re faking, and it does a number on you if you don’t have someone protecting you from it.”

“Neither of us are strangers to the lifelong issues overly forceful parents can cause, so we definitely won’t be like that.” She nodded towards the hardback book with post-it notes sticking out of its pages rested on the coffee table titled ‘Breaking the Cycle’. The day they’d found out that Tatiana was pregnant they’d brought the book home from the store and they had been studying it together ever since to ensure neither of them would make the same mistakes their own parents did. 

Echidna had always been a viscous tyrant who’d inspired fear in her and her sisters from the time they were small. All three of them had been beaten like animals into obedience and manipulated into serving her every whim. Tatiana’s mother had been a relatively good parent, save for the fact she could easily put Patsy Ramsay to shame whenever her daughter dawned a leotard and tights — and her drunken father had up and left his two children only a week after their mother had died. From the outside looking in it would have seemed easy for them to avoid making the same mistakes that their parents had, yet having never known anything different than their own circumstances it was actually far more difficult than people who’d had healthy examples to follow would ever realise.

The damage their parents had inflicted upon them was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was the memory of how painful it had been. Those scars written into both of their bodies would serve as fuel. Fuel to ensure that they raised children who wouldn’t have to recover from their childhoods like they’d both had to.

“We’ll keep each other on track, won’t we?,” Tatiana sighed, happily.

Medusa knew that there was always going to be bad stuff out there in the world. But the most amazing thing that she had learned since meeting her wife was that light would always eventually overcome the darkness, every time. It was easy to stick a candle into the dark, but not as easy to stick the dark into the light. From her point of view, people could always choose to be in the dark, or they could light a candle and allow its warm glow to light the way. And for her, Tatiana was that candle. And she always would be. She was the one person who had told her that her flaws only made her love her even more. Tatiana knew better than anyone else that the gorgon was not perfect, but she was perfect to her.

“We always do, Annie.” She kissed the crown of her head and nuzzled her face against the sweet smelling strands of her freshly washed hair. They didn’t need to break open the vaults of childhood traumas to understand exactly what each other was thinking. They both understood, and there was nothing that they had to say to comfort each other. Sometimes there aren't words. The silence between them flung as deep as an ocean. But they managed to reach across it, to wrap their arms around each other. The silence and gentle touches shared did the talking — and even if Medusa hadn’t already known that Tatiana was the person she was supposed to be with, she’d have jumped to the conclusion in that gentle moment. You know someone's right for you when the things they don't have to say are even more important than the things they do.

“I’m still confused.”

“About?”

“Technically speaking, are our kids demigods or demigorgons? Gorgods?”

Medusa huffed in amusement. “You are absolutely ridiculous.”

“And you’re stalling because you don’t know the answer.”

“Alright, alright...since you’re pregnant and we’ve already experienced more than enough mood swings today I will admit that the term Gorgods is rather cute.” She kept her teasing as light as she could because she knew that Tatiana couldn’t take it in her hormonal state. Usually she’d have no trouble firing back with better than she got, but creating two new people with both gorgon and godly blood was more work than anyone could truly understand. She was emotionally fragile and understandably so.

Tatiana looked all too proud of herself at her approval and Medusa’s heartbeat quickened at the sweet little smile that was cast her way. Beneath her palm she could feel both of their girls moving around rambunctiously, which meant that they were healthy according to every book she had read. It was one of those moments when the world moved so slowly she could feel her bones shifting and her mind slowly tumbling. One of those moments when she knew that no matter what happened to her for the rest of her life, she would remember every last detail of that one minute forever. The warmth of her wife’s body against hers. The fluttery movements from inside her belly. The twinkling Christmas lights and crackling fire roaring in the fireplace as snow fell outside. And the sound of Scylla’s old bike that could be heard from an entire block away, which meant that both dinner and company was on the way.

The sound of Scylla’s motorcycle could always be heard from inside the house whenever she drove onto their block, but Medusa didn’t even both untangling herself from her wife’s embrace as Tatiana was comfortable...and when a hungry pregnant woman was comfortable only a fool would move. She knew that their friends would just let themselves in anyway, like they always did when they came over.

“Charybdis shut the fuck up! Tinkerbell could be sleeping for all you know!,” Prime hissed from outside the front door, interrupting whatever tale her girlfriend was telling. The affectionate nickname that Tatiana was known by amongst pretty much all of New York’s hardened gangsters brought a small smile to Medusa’s face, though. Part of her had worried that her gaining status as queen of the gods would strain her relationship with their friends, but that hadn’t happened at all. Medusa used to tell the gang that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct, and that had only been proven true. If anything an entire criminal underworld had only become even more protective of her and the infamous Tinkerbell nickname had come to fruition — Tatiana was tiny and far more graceful compared to the company she kept, so it seemed to fit.

“Medusa will deck you if you wake her up again,” Eryn said.

“Open the damn door, geniuses. I look like a fucking delivery boy standing here with all these pizzas like it’s good for my health,” Scylla laughed, making both Medusa and Tatiana giggle.

Charybdis was the first one to appear in the living room, covered in snow and already digging into the garlic bread whilst grumbling about the fact she’d gained ten pounds since Tatiana had gotten pregnant. She looked like an angry yeti. Every single of them had gained a few, Medusa included, as supporting the pregnant member of the family whilst she indulged in her cravings seemed like the most prudent decision they could make.

The aunts-to-be were taking their roles very seriously and it never ceased to be amusing to see the lengths they would go to to help. Like, Scylla and Charybdis picking up a stroller from a store on the Upper West Side and deciding to test it out to ensure that it could hold Charybdis before allowing their nieces in it...Charybdis had gotten her ass stuck in it and they’d shown up at H.E.R.A to visit Tatiana at work like nothing was amiss, despite the fact Scylla was pushing her around MidTown Manhattan in an expensive stroller whilst Charybdis kicked back with a hip flask full of champagne. And every week they’d join them for dinner on Monday nights, eating whatever it was Tatiana was craving and managing to keep her spirits up despite the fact she was exhausted and uncomfortable.

“When I was a baby I slept on a rock,” Charybdis said, whilst looking through their elaborately organised nursery Pinterest board. “A literal rock with pointy edges and everything. In a cave. Next to an open flame. This shit is wild.”

“I had a bed made of straw,” said Eryn, her mouth full of pepperoni pizza.

“I slept in a crate with a mattress made of seaweed,” Scylla laughed.

“I genuinely think I slept on the floor until I was an adult,” shrugged Prime.

“Stheno, Euryale, and I slept in hammocks.”

“Uh...I shared a bunk bed with Josh until I was ten and got into the Royal Ballet School,” Tatiana shrugged. It was so easy to forget how much younger than them Tatiana was, as her youth was never really made glaringly obvious...save for when they spoke of their childhoods. “Then I had to share a room with five other girls for four years until I left London for the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.”

“Your inner baby gay must’ve struggled so much being around so many girls in tight outfits,” Scylla smirked. “Hell, I’ve caught your wife looking far too red in the face whilst watching videos of you dancing...and that’s with centuries of self restraint under her belt.”

Everyone started giggling as Medusa’s face began to heat up. She couldn’t exactly deny the fact that some of the costumes her wife had performed in did things to her, given that a fair few left very little to the imagination. Then there was the way she commanded the stage in each and every starring role she’d taken on, the unshakable self confidence that made it impossible to look away from her as she contorted her body and put every other dancer round about her to shame. It was just like how she commanded the respect of the Olympians and godly monsters alike, no matter what room she happened to walk into...she didn’t even need her H.E.R.A badge to be able to do it...and it was an extraordinary gift.

“She’s my wife, I’m allowed to have that reaction,” Medusa huffed.

“She threatened to shoot me when I made the mistake of saying you looked hot in the black swan dance you did,” Prime laughed.

“You said her tits looked amazing in the costume,” snorted Eryn. “I’d probably have shot you, too.”

“Hey, hey, hey, we’re all gay here. If we can’t compliment each other’s tits without shooting each other how will we ever succeed in pushing the agenda into mainstream society?,” Tatiana deadpanned. After so many years of life experience between them, it was incredibly difficult for anyone to make them laugh, yet Tatiana often left them all in stitches with no real effort at all. Her sense of humour was brilliantly dry and sarcastic, and she said whatever happened to pop into her mind with no qualms at all — it was exactly why Scylla and Charybdis had taken such a strong liking to her so quickly.

“See! Tinkerbell gets it!,” laughed Prime. 

Tatiana beamed. “I mean, what kind of club even is this if we can’t compliment each other like a drunk straight man trying to pick up a pretty girl in a bar?”

Scylla immediately started choking on her glass of coke as the entire room cracked up, Medusa included. This woman. This woman had made her laugh more in just a few years than she had done in centuries. How it was even possible for another person to make her so happy would forever remain a mystery to her, but her wife brought her joy like she’d never known it before...and she had absolutely no idea how she’d managed to survive without her for as long as she did.

For centuries people had always said that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. But she had quickly learned that not one word of that was true in the slightest. Medusa now knew that when you love someone, when you truly love someone, everything in the world matters just a little bit more than it did before. Love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone's expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough in every way; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them. Deep down all any anyone wanted, really, was to know that they mattered...that their life counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich and colourful without them in it...and Medusa knew that without a doubt, she had that.

Looking around the living room, Medusa felt almost afloat in her quiet joy. Her chest felt full of glitter and helium, the way it used to when she was little and riding on Stheno’s shoulders by the ocean at twilight, when she knew that if she held up her hands and spread her fingers like a net, she could catch the coming stars. She was content with where she was in her life, made her peace with everything that had happened in order for her to get to that point of bliss. 

See, as much as she had wanted to cling on to the bitter sore memories of what injustices she’d faced, with age had come the maturity to realise that she had been poisoning herself for years. The very act of forgiving is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded. Forgiveness, she had learned, wasn’t something that a person does for somebody else, it was something that they did for themselves. Forgiveness was saying, 'You're not important enough to have a chokehold on me.' It was saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.’

The darkness that had lingered over her every waking moment for so many years had well and truly lifted, and she’d picked herself up from rock bottom with Tatiana leading her towards the light. She had put the pieces of her life back together again, slowly and surely. Everything that has the ability to break — be they bones, hearts, or promises — could be put back together but will never really be exactly the same as they were before, even if they look intact...and that wasn’t a bad thing.

It was a certainly a funny thing, but it wasn’t bad. Change was always funny, in a way. People are never quite sure what they are becoming or even why — regardless if they happened to be gods or goddesses, godly monsters, or even human. It was the one inescapable truth that wound every living being together. That one day every living soul would look at themselves in the mirror and wonder who they are and how they got that way. Only one thing about change remains constant through the bounds of time and space...and that was that it would always be painful. Yet things had a way of working out for the best when you let them run their course.

It was only from her vantage point that Medusa could truly look back and see how big of a shit show her life had turned into after her aura had been stripped away. She’d been like the princess in an ivory tower written about in the famous fairy stories people told their children, except every brick had been made of far more history than any mortal would be able to comprehend, and she built the tower with her own two hands. What she hadn't realised was that sometimes when your vision was as sharp and true as hers was, it could actually cut you. That only if once you’d felt such fullness could you really understand the ache of being completely empty — that sometimes, unfortunately, it does take a crisis to save a life, to get to know yourself and figure what you need out of life.

She hadn’t actually realised it at the time, but she’d been ready to die after losing everything. 

She had slept a lot and whenever she woke up the very first thought that had run through her head was wishing that she could just go back to bed. She could go entire weeks on nothing but mugs of tea because food had been a commodity that kept her alive. She’d reread the same book a hundred times, as the information held within its pages hadn’t stuck in her mind. Each day she had been trapped inside her own mind, rewinding her entire life like a videocassette through everything that made her weep and pause, yet nothing had made her want to play it forwards.

And then one day, after she had made the decision that she had enough energy left in her to do this one, last, monumental thing, there had come a peace. She’d met Tatiana and learned that heros didn't leap off of tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening and loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back. 

Tatiana would never hear of Medusa telling her that she had saved her, but she had, and she had done it without even realising what she was doing. When one had lived for as long as she had in a world with limits...when they thought they had met everyone and seed everything that was even worth seeing — it was far, far, too easy to lose the hope that something extraordinary would happen to them in their life. And it often stirred Medusa’s mind into considering what she considered to be one of life’s most remarkable questions: do all the most wonderful things happen when we are not truly aware of them unfolding before us? Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or feared might come to pass passed by instead — people made messes of their lives all the time, but every now and then, they somehow managed to do something that was exactly right. She had learned that the true challenge was figuring out which was which, and Tatiana had taught her that what makes a treasure a treasure was how rare a find it was, when one happens to need it the most. Those treasures didn’t come around everyday and happy endings didn’t grow on trees, but Medusa was thankful everyday that she had fought for hers...and she knew now that sometimes all a person needs is to live one more day to find a good reason to stick around.


End file.
